Download Wiley Introducing AutoCAD 2008

starting a drawing
You can dock toolbars to the top, bottom, or sides of the AutoCAD window to keep
them out of the drawing area.
If you do not want the toolbar to dock but instead want it to appear “floating” near the border of the AutoCAD window, you can press the Ctrl key before you click and drag the toolbar
into position. This prevents toolbars from automatically falling into a docked position.
AutoCAD remembers your toolbar arrangement between sessions. When you exit and
then reopen AutoCAD later, the AutoCAD window appears just as you left it.
Starting a Drawing
Starting a new drawing in AutoCAD is a little different from other programs, so let’s
create a new file to see how it’s done:
1. Choose File ➔ Close to close the current file. When the message box appears asking
you to save changes, click No. Notice that the toolbars disappear and that the AutoCAD drawing window appears blank when no drawings are open.
2. Choose File ➔ New to open the Select Template dialog box.
3. Select the acad.dwt template file, and then click Open to open a blank drawing
window.
4. To give your new file a unique name, choose File ➔ Save As to open the Save Drawing
As dialog box.
5. Enter My First Drawing. As you type, the name appears in the File Name text box.
Notice that the file will be saved in the My Documents folder by default.
6. Click Save. You now have a file called My First Drawing.dwg, located in the My Documents folder. Of course, your drawing doesn’t contain anything yet. You’ll take care of
that next.
The acad.dwt template file you selected in step 3 is really just an AutoCAD drawing file
that has been set up with standard settings. AutoCAD uses those settings to create a new
file. As you saw in the Select Template dialog box, you can choose from several such
templates.
The new file you just created shows a drawing area roughly 75 units wide by 45 units
high. The units can be inches, meters, or millimeters. You determine what the units are
equivalent to through the Drawing Units dialog box, which you will learn about in
Chapter 2.
The drawing area you’re presented with initially is your workspace, although you’re not
limited to the 75-by-45-unit area in any way. No visual clues indicate the size of the area,
so to check the area size for yourself, move the crosshair cursor to the upper-right corner
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